A Nightime Travesty

The premise for A Nightime Travesty is a grim one and, in fact, much of the imagery in the play evokes ideas around apocalyptic death and destruction. This grim view of the current state of global affairs is contextualised as a final flight to escape earth. The idea is ingenious as it imagines the reality of the last remaining individuals who are pointlessly trying to escape their fatal destiny after exploiting and exhausting the earth’s resources. The audience is positioned as the passengers and Kamarra Bell-Wykes (Alexa) and Carly Sheppard (Angel) as the stewardesses. They are flanked by the character of death (Zach Blampied), live musicians (Matt Pana and Small Sound), and the appearance of a frightful looking Jabberwocky (Peter Wykes).

Despite the grim premise and imagery, this performance is full of excellent satire, wry humour and astute political criticism, largely shepherded by the somewhat unlikely pair of stewardesses. Alexa is a robot, produced from artificial intelligence, and partners with her colleague, aptly named Angel. The tongue-in-cheek tone is present even from the opening acknowledgement to country and persists energetically right to the very end of the show. The text makes a mockery of almost any semblance of the trappings of civilised society given its direct route to self-annihilation. The role of colonialism, greedy capitalism, racism, classism, religious fervour and toxic masculinity are among the main targets of the criticism mounted in this play. The futile attempts at keeping up appearances in the face of death are shown to be shallow and superfluous, as the ultimate fate of the flight becomes increasingly clear. 

This narrative thread is well sustained in this production, even if there are frequent meanderings and the occasional labouring of some of the ideas. The humour is conveyed via an eclectic collection of makeshift set design, garish costuming, song, and dance which are all accompanied by some excellent live music. The scenes can involve anything from beheadings to melodic musical numbers. This creates quite a rollercoaster ride for the audience, but the resulting comedy is often hilarious. The tone is not dissimilar to the humour in the film Don’t Look Up (Adam McKay 2021) with its similarly grim outlook on the state of world politics. Bell-Wykes and Sheppard are sensational. Their ability to conjure up and inhabit the variety of different and sometimes despicable personas is not only hysterically funny but also incredibly accurate.

This show radically overturns conventional notions of performance and entertainment. As the demeanour of the stewardesses suggests, you need to strap yourself in for the ride and surrender yourself to some very well-orchestrated chaos. 

Patricia Di Risio 

Photographer: Gregory Lorenzutti